*I was sent an ARC of Unlock the Dark in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to HarperCollins and Sasa Hawk for my copy of the book*

Synopsis: 

Elia Tallis’s key conjuring abilities, when used with her father’s magic, allow her to open a path to any location. But Papa is dying, and Elia has been forced to painfully tether him to life so she can siphon his magic to provide for her siblings. The god of death, angry to be denied his due, punishes her by claiming her youngest brother as a servant.

Desperate to save her brother, Elia accepts a potentially deadly commission from Trys, a kindhearted prince with his nose stuck in a book. Trys wants Elia to help him find a legendary scroll. In exchange, he’ll give her his hand in marriage, securing her and her siblings’ futures and allowing her to release Papa to the afterlife.

Despite the danger of their quest, Elia and Trys find themselves increasingly drawn to each other. But when Trys finally reads the scroll, it transforms him into a monster beyond comprehension. Elia will have to wield her power in ways she never thought possible, braving a world of endless darkness and the nightmares dwelling within it to bring home the prince she’s growing to love.

Review:

Unlock the Dark is a debut with a brilliant concept, but not so great execution. The bits that were good, were really good but some areas were quite lacking. Let’s get the negatives out of the way first.

I was expecting this book to be a much quicker read than it was. I’m now learning to not trust the number of pages on the NetGalley reader (which I don’t actually read with, I use it just to get an idea of how long a book is) as it claimed Unlock the Dark was less than 300 pages long–it was not. Unfortunately, the fact that it took me way longer than expected to finish Unlock the Dark did affect my feelings towards the book. The start of the book took way too long to get going, the ‘deadly commission’ Elia accepted from Trys is over too quickly and the ending also dragged quite a bit. 

This brings me to my next point. I actually think Unlock the Dark would have worked better as duology. That way, there would have been more time to learn about the magic of this world, which seemed quite interesting, and relationships would have had more time to develop. (Slight spoiler ahead) I do think there is a spark between Elia and Trys but they confessed their love to each other way too quickly–technically this happens near the end of the book but I think it was too soon.

The quest they go on to find the scroll, which is the ‘deadly commission’ mentioned above, takes place over just a small chunk of chapters. The world building for Serratura is the best in the entire book, but you don’t get to spend a lot of time there. It’s an isolated island in the sky that has great advancements in technology and an interesting culture. I would have loved to spend more time there instead of the ‘the scroll is in the library, let’s go get it, we’ve got it’ plot we did get.

Ok, that’s enough of the negatives. Here are the parts of the story I actually did enjoy.

Elia was a wonderfully stubborn main character. It’s refreshing to not get a ‘I’m not like the other girls’ character in a romantasy (using that genre name very lightly). She has a fierce love for her family and will do literally anything to keep them safe, including defying the orders of a god of death. She definitely had her flaws and she made a few stupid decisions but her determination and love for her family more than made up for them.

Speaking of Elia’s family, I loved them. They all had different types of ‘magic’, which I would love to see explored more in future books. I’m particularly interested in Orin’s threadlore magic where he creates tales of action, love and adventure in garments. I think each sibling has enough potential to have a book of their own, exploring the different types of magic in this world.

Which is probably the best part of this book for me. The lore of this world is fascinating. I want to know more about the different types of magic and how they play a part in the everyday lives of the characters (one of them is a baker that uses magic to make the best confections in the city, so cool!). The different Gods were also really interesting. Sadly, you don’t get to learn a lot about them.

Overall, I would recommend Unlock the Dark despite the areas I think it is lacking in. The world building you do get is really well done and the plot is unique and interesting–the execution was lacking just a little bit in my opinion. 

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